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[quote=Anonymous]Oh gosh, we had to deal with this way earlier than expected. Our beloved nanny died (somewhat suddenly - very fast acting cancer) when our kids were 1.5 and 3. The little one was totally out of the loop, but the 3 year old definitely understood. It was a big change for him.

The biggest advice we got, was NOT to use euphemisms, and if someone dies because they're sick, be VERY careful to explain that it's a very different kind of sick from when they get sick.

So not:

"Larla passed away. She got very sick, and now she's at rest. We're so sorry that we've lost her."

But rather:

"Larla died. That means that her body stopped working. She is gone forever - we will never see her again, and she will never move or talk or laugh or think again. What made her her is gone. She was very very sick - not the way that you guys or mommy or daddy get sick - a very different kind of sick called cancer, that her body couldn't fix."

He handled it in stride, though struggled with the change in routine.

Then we had a string of older relatives that my kids were not close to (they had met them once or twice) die when the kids were about 3 and 4.5. That actually was, oddly, I think a "good" experience for them. They could understand "Grandpa is really sad because his sister died" and we went over the basics of death for my younger the way we had with the older when the nanny died. But THEY weren't actually really sad or impacted as they barely knew these people. We did go to the funerals (I think it was three in one summer) and I think that was a really, really good choice. They had a ton of practical questions (cremation, caskets, funerals, grave yards, headstones, etc - lots of new vocabulary!), were old enough to behave, and the older generation LOVED having them there. In fact, when we were thinking of skipping out on the second part of the service for one of them for nap time, the widower (my uncle) asked us to please come, so we skipped nap and went. They were a bit of hope and sunshine for the sad older folks.

Death is a part of life. Showing kids that it's sad is important, but teaching them that funerals are too scary and need to be avoided isn't healthy. One of the funerals was open casket - I think that actually helped, too. One of the kids (4.5) had a lot of questions about the body, but didn't want to get close, and of course that was fine. The other (3), wanted to see it, and did get close, but then moved on pretty quickly. But the thing about an open casket is - it's very concrete. "That body is not a living person anymore" is VERY obvious. We were on the fence about taking them (the open casket one was the first of the three), decided to, and were so, so glad we did. [/quote]

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